


Die Dunkelheit

by yu_sigao



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Antisemitism, Backstory, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Character Study, Child Abuse, Cold War, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description of Corpses, Headcanon, Historical, Horror, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Nazi Germany, Post-World War II, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2021-04-19
Packaged: 2021-04-20 22:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yu_sigao/pseuds/yu_sigao
Summary: "He looked in the mirror at the end of ten long years of running. Finally, he could see what others saw, hear what others heard. There was nothing beyond his eyes. He wondered when the depth inside him had become a black hole, perhaps when he had first held a human heart in his hands? Still it reverberated in every inch of the universe and to the rhythm of his own pulse. He felt like a toxic waste container, full of unforgettable and incomprehensible sights, the result of having seen God - now that people cannot and will not understand." This is the story of the Medic's life, from the first time he left home as a young man to the moment he was recruited by TF Industries.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	1. Du Dunkelheit, aus der ich stamme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those not in the know, the Medic's first or last name is said to be "Ludwig" in the comics. The Rottenburg map in-game has a pharmacy owned by a family by the name of Humboldt, that sells baboon organs, so I guess his full name to be "Ludwig Humboldt." Lutz is a short form of Ludwig.

_Stuttgart, 1935_

Ludwig pressed on the doorbell. The familiar pleasant ringtone sounded. He waited for a few moments, staring at the pristine off white door, part of the modestly sized but comfortable house his family lived in. Just as he was attuning his hearing to the bees buzzing in the front garden, Mrs Humboldt opened the door.

"Lutz! Welcome home. Have you checked the mail? You look red, come inside."

The young man chuckled, "Yes, Mutter, the mailbox was empty."

He stepped in, inhaling the cool air, and feeling the sweat on his forehead quickly evaporate. It had been warmer outside than he anticipated, and he had made the mistake of wearing his sweater to school. (It had looked wintery in the morning and his mother insisted.) Ludwig was about to turn into his room, when Mrs Humboldt tugged on his sleeve.

"Lutz, you study too hard, you must take a drink first."

With a slight sigh, Ludwig walked into the living room, schoolbag still on and a canvas white bookbag hanging off his left shoulder. He took a seat and set his schoolbag on the floor, and bookbag flat on the table, accepting the ice cold glass of water his mother had set down for him. As his mother wandered out of the kitchen, he heard a noise from the sink and turned around.

It was merely Mr Humboldt rinsing off the dishes and setting them to dry.

"Vater," Ludwig stated. "Father, you are early."

"Only by an hour," Mr Humboldt replied.

"Why are you home early?"

"The surgery had to close. I still had patients to serve, but one started causing trouble."

"Ach, poor luck, huh? What did they do?" Ludwig asked, taking a long sip of water. He positioned himself comfortably, one arm holding his drink and the other slung casually over the chair.

"Yes, poor luck indeed. A fat, angry, balding old man came in and refused to tell the receptionist what he was in for. Instead of ignoring him, she meekly put him down as being here for a checkup - she's very easy to intimidate. So he sat there, looking very cross and wound up. And when I had gone through all the patients before his arrival, I opened the door to let him into my office when he picked me up by the collar and slammed me against the wall, screaming that I was a Jew. However, the other patients held him back, and my very sensitive receptionist - who I scolded later to be more assertive and discerning with patients - called the police."

Ludwig stopped sipping and put his drink back down on the table, eyes remaining fixed to his father. Mr Humboldt continued to dry the glasses as if nothing was wrong.

"But we're not Jews, father."

"Yes, so the man was quite silly. But my mother, and your Großmutter was."

Ludwig laughed. "But grandmother's dead! She's been dead for years! And she converted and married a gentile while she was alive, so what does it matter?"

"Oh, dear," Mrs Humboldt said in a soft voice. She had come back into the living room with a basket of freshly collected laundry. "Please no more discussions of this. Blood percentage means nothing to us but it apparently means something to the higher ups running this country. It can't be helped! Let's divert our attention elsewhere."

"It is alright," Mr Humboldt said. "That man did not scare me. If he bothers me again, I can always call my friends at the local hospital to kidnap him and harvest his organs."

Both Mr Humboldt and Ludwig laughed, but Mrs Humboldt did not.

"Please don't, dear, remember the time they almost arrested me for selling human organs at the pharmacy? We're sticking with illegally harvesting them from animals only!"

Being married to a mad doctor for over two decades had desensitised her to this sort of talk, though as demonstrated, a woman had to be a bit mad herself to marry a madman like Mr Humboldt. As Mrs Humboldt began to fold the laundry on her lap, she turned on the radio beside her seat and hummed along. Ludwig stood up and carried both of his bags, and headed to his room.

"No snacks, son?" yelled Mr Humboldt after him.

"Nein, ich bin gut," Ludwig replied. "Perhaps later."

Climbing the Art Deco staircase - Ludwig thought it made the house's interior look outdated - he made a sharp left into his room, and set his bags down on the ground. He shed his school blazer and hung it on a rack, then tucked it neatly into his closet. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then brushed his hair back with his palm, before sitting down at the desk by his bed and taking the thick book that had been making his shoulder hurt to carry all day out of his bookbag.

_Anatomie - 1932 Auflage_

He turned to the contents page, and then to whichever chapter interested him the most - that day, it was the heart, so he read the chapters on that. Coming from a family of doctors, Ludwig understood some of these terms and sentences, but not others, before finally surrendering and deciding to go back and read the introductory passages of the textbook. The chapters were long and dense, and even with glasses, it strained his eyes to read font so small. It took him half an hour to finish merely one chapter. But he read and read, until...

He woke up.

Ludwig looked outside the window. It was dusk. He must have been reading and then drifted off to sleep. _Is this medicine?_ he thought. _Is this what studying medicine is going to be like?_

Mr Humboldt knocked on the door despite it already being open, as Ludwig turned around.

"Ludwig, be down in 15 minutes to help your mother with dinner, alright?"

He walked closer to his son and peered over his shoulder. "Studying medicine?"

"Ja," Ludwig replied. "To be like you, and like all the men in our family."

"And some women," Mr Humboldt added. He pointed at the open textbook. "I remember that book from medical school. Horrible. Hated it. No matter how many editions they make of it, the authors are just incomprehensible. I'll get you a better one."

Ludwig rubbed his eyes again. 

Mr Humboldt continued, "Are you sure in your choice to become a doctor? You don't have to just because it's tradition."

"Nein, Vater, I really want to. It is a beautiful science and an intriguing art. The human body is fascinating and I want to explore and tinker with it."

"But you do not care about saving lives?"

"...Oh, that too, I guess."

Mr Humboldt straightened his back and smiled. "In that case, my boy, I have something to tell you."

"What is it, father?"

"Your principal has been calling your mother and I. He has noted you are an intelligent young man. As have many universities from the countless science competitions you've participated in. Ludwig, there is a university in Berlin that wants you. Your principal is letting you graduate early. If you pass the entrance exam of that university, you can go to medical school a year ahead of most people."

Ludwig's face lit up with surprise. "Mein Gott..."

"But, Lutz, think carefully about this." At this moment, Mr Humboldt grew tired of standing and sat down on Ludwig's bed. "Berlin is so very, very far away. It's a big city, bigger than Stuttgart. You will live on the university campus and they will cover your rent for the first few months, but they do expect you to work while studying. You will be away from your mother and father. You will only be able to see us through photos and letters we send each other and hear us through calls you make to us. You are a man now, but are you prepared to cut the tether so soon?"

"Vater," replied Ludwig, standing up. "Thank you for everything you've done for me, and thank Mutter too, but, I am sure I will be fine."

"That is the answer I thought I would hear," Mr Humboldt said. "But, don't get your hopes up. You might fail the exam and still have to do this the normal way."

"One of you get down here so I can cook dinner!" shrieked Mrs Humboldt from downstairs.

* * *

_Berlin, 1936_

Ludwig woke up groggy and stiff in the neck and joints. He lifted his head from the train windows and blinked his eyes a few times. The sky was overcast. _So this is Berlin, huh?_ All the buildings looked the same as in Stuttgart, yet there was something about the way they were organised, a certain flair to their architecture, that made it seem exotic. He looked at his seat and the ground, counting his luggage. One suitcase, dark grey, hardly used before. One bookbag, made of white canvas, heavily used and straining at the seams with the weight of all his new textbooks. He took the time to examine his appearance in the window too, retrieving a small comb from his pocket and brushing his hair back. However, a lock of hair resisted and hung from his bangs. Ludwig sighed and folded his comb away, before tightening his tie, straightening himself up, and pushing his glasses up his nose.

The announcer said over the radio to the carriages, "The next stop is Berlin Central Station."

Ludwig tore his gaze from the mirror and slung his bookbag over his shoulder, taking his suitcase by the handle and preparing to alight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Die Dunkelheit" is German for "The Darkness." The title of this chapter translates to "Thou darkness whence I originate", which is a line from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke by the same name, translated by Sharon Krebs. You'll know if you've read my Bungou Stray Dog fanfiction that I quite enjoy putting literary allusions in my work. I used quite a lot of sunny imagery to describe the Medic's adolescence, which is in conflict with the fact he was apparently born into a long line of mad doctors, and will become one himself. However, at this point, the Medic hasn't grown into that yet.
> 
> Writing this story will probably be hard on my psyche as I have to study a lot of disturbing things to do it. As such, it will be updated very infrequently. Please be patient. In addition, please be careful when reading this fanfiction. It will include very graphic depictions of violence and torture, enough that I felt it warranted an explicit rating. For those who clicked on this because they expected smut, I'm sorry to disappoint. This story also depicts sensitive historical events. It will not discuss the Holocaust or Nazi war crimes, but it does depict WW2, Nazism, and antisemitism. I am not a Nazi sympathiser.
> 
> If I have depicted something insensitively, please inform me so I may amend it. Thank you.
> 
> Also, if people can point out my inaccuracies in German, that'd be very much appreciated.


	2. Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter depicts antisemitism in the form of verbal harassment and scientific racism, which refers to pseudoscientific ways groups such as the Nazis falsified scientific theories and evidence to prove that certain people were inferior to others. Please read with caution if you are triggered by such material. I do not condone any of the things depicted.

_Berlin, 1936_

The alarm clock blared at 8 o' clock as Ludwig sighed and shrugged off his doona. After making his bed in the dark, he opened the blinds with a sharp pull and stared outside.

It looked cold. It was still drizzling outside, with the roads and pavements looking very shiny and wet. The dawning sun was peeking through the trees. Sighing, he pulled himself away from the window and hastily dressed himself. In the tiny studio apartment Ludwig now had to call his home on campus, he made coffee and drank it while it was still hot enough to scarcely burn his throat. He winced, but didn't care. Life was hard enough as it is.

Taking his coat and cap off the rack, Ludwig entered his dorm hallway and took the stairs out of the building.

Walking out of his university, he turned onto the main street and observed the cars and people going by. Rush hour was beginning. Miserable office workers and businessmen were rushing to their mind numbing desk jobs. Children, sometimes escorted by housewives, were walking to school. High schoolers were walking themselves and some were borderline sprinting to make it to the early classes they didn't have to take, but chose as electives for extra credits. One of them tripped on the slippery ground. Ludwig smiled, faintly being reminded of himself in his senior year.

Those high school memories led him to recall his parents. Did they miss him? Surely he must give them a call soon, they would all be relieved to know he's doing well. Mutter would get especially anxious that he's away from home, but maybe she's glad to have him gone as last he heard, she was now able to work full time at the Humboldt's Pharmacy. As Ludwig mused on these thoughts, he reached his destination: a little shop by the name of "Steiner's Groceries." It was humbly sized, laid with red bricks, and a green door with the paint peeling off. The antiquated 19th century sign displaying it's name in German was faded, and an old fashioned oil lamp overhung the side of the door, for night.

Ludwig entered, instantly grateful for the warmer air, and gazed at the empty counter.

"Liesel, get down from there!" yelled the voice of an old man. It seemed to come from the storage room behind the counter.

"Nein, Opa, I want to help!" replied a little girl.

"Liesel, it's dangerous!" the old man continued, before something crashed with a loud bang. "Eliiiiisa!"

"Please, Opa, it's not serious," said the voice of a young woman. "Komm, Elisa, komm."

The young woman exited the storage room with the little girl clinging to her arm. Ludwig could see that the woman was about his age, modestly tall, with freckled cheeks and flaxen hair. Her hair had been curled and was cropped at the nape of her neck, framing her cheeks and jawline. She was wearing a plain shirtwaist and tan apron on top. The little girl, who must've been Elisa, appeared only nine or ten, dark haired and dark eyed, dressed in her school pinafore and dragging a disproportionately large backpack in her other arm. She blinked at Ludwig as the woman took to the counter.

"Guten Morgen," she said, "Good morning. How may I help you?"

There was something odd about the way she was looking at Ludwig, but he ignored it.

"I'm here to apply for a job here. I saw the posters around that you're hiring."

"Oh, how wonderful!" the woman said. Ludwig swore there was a flirtatious undertone to her voice, and believe him, he wasn't trying to imagine it.

"Noooo!" Elisa groaned.

"Opa!" the woman yelled into the storage room. "A guy here wants to apply to work here."

Instantly, the old man Ludwig heard talking before emerged. He was tall and thick in build, and the top of his head was already bald. The hair he did have was white. He sported a thick mustache and rectangular glasses, and wore the same tan apron as the woman.

"Oh, thank God! I thought no one would ever! I was about to take those silly posters down," the old man exclaimed, holding out his hand. "It is Otto Steiner."

"Ludwig Humboldt," Ludwig replied, shaking his hand.

"This is Elisa," the old man said, gesturing to the little girl, then gesturing to the woman, "This is Gertrude."

"Hello," Gertrude said, waving and smiling suggestively at Ludwig.

"Are these your grandchildren?"

"Oh no, only Elisa is, Gertrude simply calls me Opa because she's worked here for years."

"Noooo!" Elisa whined again. "Don't hire him, Opa! Hire me! I want to work!"

She went unnoticed as Otto continued. "I really thought no one would apply. Despite that, I still need to go through proper procedure before hiring you."

"I like him already," Gertrude abruptly said. "Let's hire him."

"Well, I'd like to," said Otto, "But we need to see if he's a good fit first. For one, how old are you, my boy?"

"I'm 17," Ludwig said.

"See? He's very young. Can someone inexperienced handle waking up very early to receive deliveries? In addition, he looks a bit unaccustomed to living heavy weights."

"I still like him with noodle arms," Gertrude replied, as Ludwig blushed. "Besides, pops, with exactly one applicant in three weeks, you can't exactly be too picky with your employees."

"Hire me!" Elisa shouted. "I want to work with Großvater!"

Otto looked like he was about to speak, when Gertrude leaned down and smiled. "Elisa, it's almost time for you to get going to school now."

"I don't want to goooo!" the girl whined.

"Oh, Liesel, if you don't go to school, you won't know what you need to work here. Come on. Schoolbag on."

Pouting, the girl slid the bag onto her back, as Gertrude pushed her out from beneath the counter and towards the door. Elisa turned around as she opened the door to leave, and then waved.

"Bye bye, Grandfather! And Fraulein Elisa! And Herr... Stranger!" she said, before leaving.

Ludwig was oddly charmed by the child's energy, before turning his attention back to Herr Otto Steiner, who had just asked him what sort of school he went to and what he planned to study.

"I attended a gymnasium, and I am studying medicine at the university right across from you."

"At only 17?"

"I was offered early entry after winning a science competition, yes."

"My, how precocious! And this would be your first job?"

"Yes, of course."

"Medicine too! Well, there's no doubt you must be a hard worker and a fast learner."

"Come on, Opa!" Gertrude exclaimed. Her eyes flicked across Ludwig's body. "Hire him already!"

Sensing some inappropriate desires coming from his employee, Otto gently slapped her upside the head, before turning back to Ludwig. "My boy, tell me, when are you available for an interview?"

* * *

Ludwig climbed the stairs, carrying his white bookbag. His joints still felt stiff, especially the shoulder he was carrying the bag on. The cold air flushed his cheeks red while stinging his ears and fingertips, as he felt as if his lungs were somehow filling up with phlegm. He was just to turn a corner onto the floor where his lecture room was when the seams of his old white bookbag finally gave way. "No!" he yelled, as his belongings - a copy of Gray's Anatomy from his father, an expensive fountain pen from his mother, his other recommended textbooks and the novels he had been reading in his free time tumbled down the stairs. He scrambled down to pick them up.

"Scheiße!" he hissed under his breath, before realising another person was beside him and flushing from embarrassment. "Entschuldigung."

"No, no," the other person said. "I understand your frustration."

Ludwig took a look at this other person while gathering his things. He was a man, with a rosy complexion and blonde hair that was undercut and combed back. When he rose and handed Ludwig's belongings back to him, Ludwig could see that he was quite tall and broad shouldered. His jaw was square, his eyes deep set, and he was, in Lutz's impartial opinion, conventionally attractive.

The other man held out his hand. "Gunther Herrmann."

Ludwig shook it. "Ludwig Humboldt."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm attending my first medical lecture," said Ludwig. "Pardon me, but I don't have much time to talk."

"That is okay," Gunther said. "I believe we were headed the same way."

And indeed they were, as the two men walked in the same direction and into the same lecture theater. Ludwig had met his first classmate, and if he played his cards right, his first friend from the novel and formidable Berlin.

He sat down next to Gunther and laid his textbooks, fictional novels, and lecture book neatly upon the table, uncapping his fountain pen and making a few scribbles, just to make sure the ink still flowed in this cold weather. (It did, to his relief.) He laid back in his chair and took a deep breath, only to find his chest feeling oddly tight. However, there was no complaint Ludwig could make about it now, as the doors of the lecture hall closed and the professor leaned into the podium.

* * *

"Hey, you look a little pale," Gunther said during the lecture break.

"Do I?" said Ludwig. "I suppose it is just the temperature."

"And you're breathing a bit funny."

Before the Ludwig could reply, Gunther called out to the lecture hall if anyone had stramonium cigarettes. A few quick yeses resounded, and in just a few seconds, someone had thrown a pack of cigarettes at Gunther, who expertly caught it. He handed one to Ludwig, who held up his hand in refusal.

"I don't smoke."

"Come on, you're choking to death. It's medicine"

"I don't have a light."

"Well, _I_ do."

Reluctantly, Ludwig took the cigarette and put it between his lips as Gunther held the lighter to the end of his cigarette. He flicked it and the ends were lit. Ludwig took a shallow breath, before encountering a foul and pungent scent, promptly taking the cigarette out and coughing.

"Ah, you weren't lying about being a novice," teased Gunther with a chuckle. "Easy now. Deep breath."

Ludwig put the cigarette to his lips again, and took a deeper breath this time, trying his best not to cough. 

"If this doesn't work," Gunther continued, "I'll get you some coffee from the cafeteria."

"Get it for me anyway; tell them to make it black without milk or sugar," Ludwig said.

Gunther left and came back with a cup of coffee, during the time which Ludwig had only half successfully breathed in smoke from the cigarette, as it was fizzling out now. As he saw his classmate slide back into his seat, he reached into his pocket for his wallet.

"Don't," Gunther said. "You don't need to pay me."

Too tired to argue, Ludwig merely nodded.

"You asthmatic or something?"

"Mildly," Ludwig confessed.

The two men were quiet for a moment as Ludwig pushed his cigarette into the ashtray and sipped his coffee. 

"It's funny," said Ludwig, breaking the silence. "Stramonium is derived from the poisonous plant, Devil's snare. In large doses, it will paralyse and kill. Yet we use it as medicine. I guess it is the poison that makes the dose, or perhaps that every poison, every danger humans know, is merely a tool or weaponry we have not learned to use yet."

"I see you're a philosophical one," replied Gunther. He eyed one of the fictional novels Ludwig had on his table. "You've been reading Hesse's Steppenwolf."

"I have. It is a rather thought provoking one."

"Do you relate to the protagonist?" asked Gunther with a smirk.

"Oh, I cannot answer that honestly," replied Ludwig with a smile just as wicked.

"We are friends now. Perhaps one day, you can."

"I am not hiding a feral nature, Gunther, I promise. At least, I don't know if I am."

"I would hope you aren't."

After the lecture, Ludwig returned to his room. He rummaged through his suitcase and then his desk drawers, wondering where the hell he put that finicky little thing, until, oh yes, he finally found it. A small wooden box, containing a few needles and spools of thread. Threading a medium sized needle with white thread, he took his tattered bookbag and began to sew. When he got hungry, he went to the cafeteria, ate his food, and continued sewing in the hall, in the cold but no longer unpleasant wind of the German February afternoon. He fell into a sort of trance, stabbing the fabric and pulling the needle through, wielding it together. He thought of his grandmother on his father's side, the only one he could remember, and even then, her details were blurred out. What was her face like? What was her hair colour? What did she wear? Ludwig could only remember her voice, and her old, wrinkled hands, as he learned to sew by watching her. Or her hands holding him in her lap, with a picture book propped in front of them, teaching him the Yiddish alphabet.

"Excellent handiwork there," said a voice coming from nowhere.

Ludwig startled, gasping and pricking his finger on his needle. His heard jerked around and all he saw was Gunther standing by his bench.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Gunther said. "Did I scare you?"

Ludwig shook his head. "It's fine."

He looked down to see his index finger bleeding. 

"That's no good. Here." Gunther held out a white, faintly patterned handkerchief, which Ludwig cautiously took and pressed his fingertip into.

"Are you attached to that thing?" Gunther asked, gesturing towards the repaired bookbag. He took a seat next to him.

"A little."

"You are good at sewing."

"Danke."

"And you're a taciturn one."

"I guess."

"You're strange, Ludwig."

"Excuse me, sir," spoke another voice. This time, Ludwig turned around to see a tall and imposing man in a green military uniform. "Are you Ludwig as in Ludwig Humboldt?"

"Yes," he replied, offering his hand.

The soldier instead clicked his heels together and raised his arm at an angle. "Heil Hitler."

"Heil Hitler!" shouted Gunther in enthusiastic response, a grin across his face.

Before the shock could show on his face, Ludwig raised his arm as well, and said quietly, "Heil Hitler."

The soldier seemed to be scanning his face for hesitation. Ludwig remained stoic. The soldier then cleared his throat.

"I've been looking for you, Herr Humboldt. You see, you've missed your Hitler Youth meetings for the last few weeks. You moved from Stuttgart without telling us, and even when I managed to wrangle your dorm number out of your mother, I suppose our letters didn't go through?"

"My greatest apologies," said Ludwig with a nod. "You see, I've been busy settling-"

"No excuses, now, _Lutz_," the soldier snarled with a hiss.

"You attend the Hitler Youth?" Gunther whispered to Ludwig. "How old are you again?"

"17, Gunther. I'm turning 18 this year."

"Christ, did you start school early?"

"No, I graduated early."

The soldier cleared his throat again, handing Ludwig a letter.

"I expect you to be attend the next ones. No objections, yes?"

"Just one," spoke Ludwig, looking the man in the eye. "I am not a youth. I am a man. I have practically been emancipated. Must I attend these childish activities?"

The soldier leaned down. "No. Exceptions. Understand? You are a child under the law and your parents bear the responsibility for what you do. Attend, or else I might need to have a stern talk with _them_."

Ludwig gulped. "I understand."

"Pardon me, sir," Gunther spoke to the soldier. "But what is your name? I admire what your kind do. Perhaps we could chat?"

The soldier stared at his watch, and then back at Gunther. "I suppose we can. I am Lieutenant Becker."

As the two drifted away to converse, Ludwig took the opportunity to run to his dorm and scream into a pillow.

* * *

_Berlin, 1936_

Ludwig turned 18 near the end of that year.

The first thing he did upon graduating from the Hitler Youth was tear his uniform apart at the seams. The second thing he did was buy the strongest beer he could and drink multiple glasses of it.

No giddy feeling eventuated. All that was left was vague depression and sleepiness. He crawled into his bed and hoped to metamorphose into a cockroach while inside of it.

* * *

_Berlin, 1937_

He was stronger now. He had not grown, but he looked taller, from the way he held himself. His shoulders and arms had widened, from the constant lifting and stocking of supplies at the store, and the gym sessions he attended with Gunther. The latter was fixated on perfecting the physical form of his body and encouraged Ludwig to do the same, in hopes it would cure his asthma. It did, at least partially. While cold wind and dry air still bothered him, exertion did not, simply because it took more to exhaust him. Gunther considered it a duty to stay strong for the nation and the master race. Ludwig learned he was quite devoted to the Party. He smiled and tried to ignore it when his friend would go on tangents about the glory of Aryans and the evils of the Jews. He couldn't afford to make a fuss and risk anyone finding out he wasn't a devotee of the Nazis, or that worse, that in his veins ran the blood of the despised.

(Late at night, Ludwig felt like apologising to his grandmother, as if she had been beside him and he failed to stand up for her.)

But there was a problem. Gunther had barely passed his first year. Ludwig held his tongue when he thought his friend might do better if he cut back on his extracurriculars, but felt a little sorry for him. He excelled so easily, while Gunther was anguishing and could not. When the first semester's exam season came, Gunther withdrew from his usual activities, and enlisted Ludwig's help to revise. And still, despite the countless days in the library and a lack of sunlight, his first paper came back with a failed grade.

One day, as Ludwig was leaving the gym, Gunther caught his arm.

"Lutz," he said. They had grown close enough for him to use that name. "Anatomy is tomorrow."

"It is. We've done all we can to revise," Ludwig began, lifting up his glasses. "I am sure this time it will be better and we shall pass."

"Help me cheat."

Ludwig's eyes widened, as he took a step back and looked at him squarely.

"Wha- What!"

"Help me cheat," the blond repeated.

Ludwig gasped, "No."

"Come on," Gunther answered, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. "We're friends. Surely you can do this for me?"

"I will not! If we get caught, I will fail too!"

"Would do you well to know what it feels like," Gunther remarked in a bitter tone.

"Gunther, being a doctor is a great responsibility. Only those cut out for it should try. It won't be fair to your hypothetical patients. You are not doing this for yourself, but for society, you understand?" Ludwig stated firmly.

"Ludwig, please," he said in a low voice, "It has cost so much and I have moved so far to come here-"

"How far?"

"From the edges of Berlin."

Ludwig blinked, and approached his friend again, keeping their eyes locked.

"And I have come from Stuttgart. There are students here from other countries. Our professor is from Austria. And you believe your cost is great? Do not do something so disgusting, Gunther. I cannot tolerate academic deception."

"God damn it, Lutz!" he abruptly yelled, taking Ludwig by his collar and slamming him against the wall. "Just help me pass! You are smart; I know you can find a way so we won't be caught! You, the best student of our cohort, who the professor takes a shine to, I know for a fact he won't have you expelled in your second year for helping someone else cheat! You, who's dad is a doctor and your granddad and so forth, for whom medicine runs in your veins! It must be so easy to have it all handed to you!"

With an equal fury, Ludwig grabbed his shoulders and pushed him off. He stumbled back, almost falling.

"You shut up, you know nothing!" Ludwig shouted back. "I have failed in my life too, and learned! I worked hard to get here! I had it all handed to me? Don't make me laugh! People like you have been running this country into the ground for people like me! And perhaps I had some natural aptitude for these arts, but if so, then doesn't your ideology say only those fit should succeed? You talk of how the Aryans are superior; how about you prove it!"

"Lutz," Gunther said softly, straightening himself. "Are you not an Aryan yourself?"

The colour from Ludwig's face drained as he realised his mistake.

Gunther maintained his glare, before smiling in a wicked manner, and turning to leave. Ludwig remained in place, stunned.

* * *

After each round of exams, Ludwig's class thinned slightly. His university was notoriously tough with a high workload; students who failed early knew it was best to leave, for it would be almost impossible to get their grades up again. However, his class was thickened again with transfers from other universities, sometimes from other countries, though internationals had become rarer too, mostly of the non-Germanic kind, due to discomfort with how the government was making many foreigners feel. In the second semester of his second year, he spotted Gunther sitting in the lecture hall a few rows down from him. They had not sat together or spoken or seen each other since their fight, and Ludwig knew their friendship had irrevocably dissolved.

The professor was talking about physiognomy. Ludwig narrowed his eyes. He felt, deep down, that it was all nonsense. Nonsense that one's appearance dictated one's mental capacities. Nonsense that Aryan features indicated superior intellect and temperament. Nonsense that a diluted blood would produce the defects the professor was talking about. Nonsense that such a thing as an Aryan race even existed.

"The master race," spoke the professor, "Is endowed with tall height, a shapely body, a dolichocephalic skull that contains a larger brain than other races, a balanced profile, and a strong build. This gifts the Aryans with better strength, endurance, health, and above all, the highest intellect among the races, to build the most sophisticated culture on Earth, and to dominate the rest."

Ludwig's hand shook with rage as he scribbled down what the professor said.

"To prove this point, I shall select a student to serve as an example of everything our master race is about. Could Ludwig Humboldt, sitting the third row from the top, please come down?"

Ludwig's eyes widened. His heart began to shake. As he lifted his head, many of his classmates' eyes were on him, including Gunther's. He had no choice. He capped his pen, laying it neatly in the margin of his open book, and began to walk down the stairs. When he reached the floor where the professor was standing on, the professor gestured for him to turn around and face the audience.

"This is an example of Aryan superiority," the professor said. "Perhaps you cannot see from this distance, but Ludwig here has the most wonderful blue-gray eyes. Look at his body; tall and strongly built. Look at his skull, the long face - Ludwig, won't you turn to the side for us? - the slope of his cranium. Now, he does not have all the traits, like the prototypical fair hair, but most of them. Is it any wonder Humboldt here is the best student of this cohort?"

Someone began to laugh. Ludwig turned his head and saw it was Gunther, who grew more maniacal by the second.

"Herrmann, what is so amusing?" asked the professor.

"Doctor, it is the fact Ludwig is a Jew! A dirty, filthy Jew!"

The lecturer gasped, as people began to whisper. Ludwig's heart started beating more furiously. He felt as if he was going to pass out. He tensed his legs, trying to stay upright, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth open in horror.

"And you, Herrmann, are an underperforming student," the professor shot back. "How should I know you are not trying to slander someone better than you?"

"I'm not," he answered, as he walked up to the professor with a paper in his hand. He put in the professor's. "From Lieutenant Becker. Lutz let it slip to me one day, and I checked if it was true through him. Ludwig Herrmann is a quarter Jewish."

Ludwig was now hyperventilating. The room began to spin even though he was staying still. He was sweating under his collar; his palms slick. And he was about to break into tears. Turning to the entrance, he sprinted from the lecture hall, leaving his belongings behind. Later, he was told, they had been discarded by one of the students into the trash: his beloved bookbag, the pen from his mother, and the textbook from his father. He never tried to get them back, and simply bought another with his own money.

* * *

Ludwig was sitting in his professor's office. It was the end of the academic year. His exam results had been returned. The weather was starting to get cold again.

"Doctor, I am here to inquire about my results."

"They are less than you expected?"

"Yes," Ludwig said. "They are very low for what I usually get. And I want to confirm there were no mistakes in marking."

"Truth be told, Ludwig, you got a 97. However, I circled whatever questions I believe you shouldn't have gotten right, and deducted the marks from them," the professor explained.

"Sir, you had me take the exam in a separate room with an invigilator. There is no way I cheated."

"My judgement is final, Ludwig."

Ludwig sighed. The professor's eyes told him it was time to leave. As he did, none of the students in the hallway looked at him.

Gunther dropped out at the end of the year. Ludwig did not miss him. He was lonely, but made no attempt to talk to anyone else. No one wanted him to anyway. At work he was more subdued.

"What's wrong?" Gertrude had once asked.

"Nothing," Ludwig said as he shook his head.

"You've been quiet."

"Yeah, Herr Humboldt has not been playing as many games with me!" shouted Elisa from behind the counter.

He turned back and smiled, "Maybe I will after I'm done with these signs, okay, Liesel?"

"Yaaaaaay!" the child yelled.

And so his university years continued like this: sterile and friendless. In the winter of '41, at the end of the year, he graduated. But before he could think about where he could find work, Germany had found itself in a crushing war with the Soviet Union. From the snowy fields of Russia, blood cried for help. And so soldiers came knocking at his door and he had a uniform and a letter thrown at him, to work in the Wehrmacht as a medic. It was easy to explain to Herr Steiner why he had to go. The old man simply told him, "I saw the war over 20 years ago. How horrid it was. I will pray for your limbs and sanity, Doctor."

Ludwig smiled. Gertrude kissed him on the cheek with sad eyes, which failed to move him, but he said he appreciated it. Liesel clung to his shirt and sobbed into it, and he found himself unable to untangle himself from her until her grandfather pried her off.

He had written to his parents. They rung one evening.

"Oh, Lutz," his mother moaned. "Please be safe."

"Mutter, you know there's only so much I can do about that."

"Lutz, don't say that! Oh, my darling boy."

"He will be fine," spoke his father in the background. "I came back fine from the last war. I am sure he will too."

Ludwig's father took the phone, and spoke into it, "Ludwig, listen to me."

"I'm listening, Vater."

"This is an unfortunate time to become a doctor."

Ludwig chuckled, "Evidently."

"You will see things that will make you wish you were blind. You will hear things that will make you were deaf. You will feel more pain than you thought possible, suffer in more ways than you can imagine. You will experience things that will make you regret existence, that you don't know what to do with, that will make you wish there is a god so we can rip their guts out. You are going to hurt so many people that you foolishly kept alive instead of letting slip into the cold. You are going to do terrible things. You are going to regret having become a doctor in a time of war. You understand that, Ludwig?"

"I understand," he gulped, while not really understanding at all.

"Good. Please remember we love you. We love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from a Rilke poem. It translates to "quiet friend who has come so far." This is probably the first major departure the Medic has taken by himself in his life.
> 
> The poem is "Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower," translated by Joanna Macy.


	3. Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß, zu der stillen Erde sag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic descriptions of warfare, injury, surgery, other medical procedures, and physical and psychological trauma. It is the first chapter that I feel justifies the explicit rating for gore. Please be careful when choosing to read this if you're sensitive to such things.
> 
> This chapter also depicts the Eastern Front of WW2. No ideological statement is meant.

_On the train to the Eastern Front, 1942_

Ludwig's fingers were getting colder. He flexed them and strummed his guitar strings, one at a time, tuning them by ear, before flipping through his notebook. It was a tiny notebook where he had written down guitar chords, little phrases in Russian (he made an effort to learn before he left, just in case he'd ever need it), song lyrics, and most embarassingly childish of all, fragments of letters from his parents, to remind him of them. His fingers were red and calloused from practice, and on the verge of bleeding. This was not how he thought he would spend his New Year's.

The train was cramped, dusty, and smelled of mildew. He prayed none of the men or himself would get sick from the mould growing on the ceiling. While the officers were in spacious carriages, the others were stowed hastily in the cramped ones, sitting with too little leg space. But this was the least of his discomforts. It was getting hard to hear his guitar over the obnoxious chatter. The other soldiers were all in groups, having conversations with themselves, while Ludwig was alone. In one corner, the men were banging against the floors and walls, as if it were a drum, and singing the old marching song he'd gotten sick of hearing in training.

"Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein!" they shouted, before banging the floors and walls three times, and continuing. "Und das heißt! (Bang, bang, bang!) "Eeeeeerika!"

It was a loud, arrogant melody. The only thing Ludwig could appreciate about it was that it reminded him of his mother. Of course the Erika of the song was meant to represent a girlfriend or a wife, but technically, his mother was a woman who was waiting for him to get back home too. One of the men singing and making the ruckus was Gunther. As Ludwig caught sight of him, he glared. They had been assigned to the same unit, but Gunther had not spared a word for Ludwig since. Even when they were in the same room, Gunther's eyes would seemly skirt over him, and he acted as if Ludwig was invisible. Perhaps it was for the best. From what Ludwig could tell, Gunther had not told anyone else his background.

As he ducked his head and returned to tuning his guitar, a small, thin brunette soldier interrupted.

"Hey, glasses!" the short man called.

Ludwig looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"So sorry, are we disturbing you? I can tell the others to be quieter," the man said, before catching sight of Ludwig's guitar. "Oh, I get it, you want to play! Hey, guys, turn it down, glasses here wants to play!"

Instantly the carriage hushed, and the only thing that could be felt was the bump of the tracks below. The men were all staring at him, except for Gunther. Ludwig cleared his throat and began to strum. He played a few refrains, and when the soldiers failed to catch on to what he was playing, he sung softly, blushing and feeling as if he'd die of embarrassment.

"Vor der Kaserne, vor dem großen Tor-"

"He's singing Lili Marleen!" the brown haired soldier cried, as half the men joined in.

"-Stand eine Laterne und steht sie noch davor."

As his voice blended in to everyone else's, Ludwig was more confident singing loudly.

"So woll'n wir uns da wieder seh'n-"

The entire carriage was in on it now, their voices defeaning.

"Bei der Laterne wollen wir steh'n-"

Such was the noise that Ludwig let his fingers rest from playing the guitar without anyone noticing.

"Wie einst, Lily Marleeeeeeen! Wie einst, Lily Marleen."

* * *

_The Eastern Front, 1942_

The field hospital stank of rotting flesh and disinfectant. This was Ludwig's first impression of the place as he wrinkled his nose as he slowly trudged through it. He had not slept that well last night. The draft through the barracks was cold and he was sore from the train ride. The scent was giving him a headache and a mild sense of nausea.

Two nurses rushed by, carrying a man on a stretcher. On the propaganda posters, burses all looked thin and dainty with perfect hair, but in real life, the nurses had their buns half undone, their aprons soiled by blood, and their faces red with effort. Their sweat was staining the collars and underarms of their dresses, as they rolled the man onto a bed and shouted for a medic to attend to the patient. Ludwig stepped forward, and seeing this as their cue, they departed to presumably bring the next patient in.

As he looked down, he saw the man was screaming. Ludwig could scarcely hear him through the terrible acoustics of the room, the rapid footsteps of anxious staff and soldiers, and the moaning of other soldiers. The man's face was bleeding. No, it looked like his face was coming off. The skin had been scraped off with a knife, and the blood was running everywhere. The hair on his skin stood up and he breathed in sharply as he was about to reach into his satchel for something to help the man's pain, until someone put a hand on his shoulder.

It was a much older gentleman, at least two or three decades his senior, with the red cross patch on his uniform.

"Don't do it," the older man said in a hushed tone. "That man's a goner."

"But he is young, the wound is superficial, surely-"

The older man stepped over to the patient, holding his face still with his hands. Slowly, he peeled back the retracted skin that was already coming off. Ludwig could see the fat, muscle, and a glimpse of the cheekbone through the tissue. The wound was not superficial. The nerve damage, the paralysis, and the disfigurement that would cause would be catastrophic. And that is if the man would survive having his face sewn back together and not pass from the shock or sepsis that was sure to creep up on him.

Ludwig looked up at the older man, only to see he had left. He made a mental note that the man was not only a fellow medic, but old enough to have served in the war of 1914. He mused that he could be the same age as his father.

His father... Ludwig shook his head. He could not think of such sentimental things while working. Looking back down at the soldier writhing, he sighed and took a syringe from his pocket. Uncapping it, he drew from his bottle of anaesthetic before injecting it into the soldier's inner elbow.

The man went quiet within a few minutes. By that time, Ludwig had hastily stitched up the gashes of a few other soldiers. When he returned to the man, he was still breathing, but his breaths were shallow, and his pulse weak. Ludwig wondered if perhaps he had overdosed him - it was easy to do when someone had lost a lot of blood. The thought that he had not only failed to save his first patient, but actually killed them was too much to bear. He tried to tell himself the old man was right. The patient was a goner. Ludwig had given him anaesthetic to relieve his pain while he tended to the others. If the man died, there's no way of knowing if whether that would have happened anyway because of his blood loss, or because of Ludwig. And besides, he wasn't dead yet. Or better yet, if Ludwig did kill him, it was better this way then perishing at nature's own torturously slow pace.

To overcome nature, to control nature, to be nature - that were the thoughts that occupied Ludwig's thoughts as pulled a needle and thread through a disgruntled soldier's forearm for the last time that day.

That night, Ludwig did not write a letter to his parents, though he wanted to. His father would surely want to hear about how his first patient went. And his father, having been through a war, would surely understand his failures, but at the same time, they were still failures.

* * *

As the weeks went by, Ludwig found himself becoming more robotically efficient at his tasks.

"Danke, Sanitäter!" shouted a perky infrantryman as Ludwig pulled the last thread through his wound. The man had a very high pain tolerance, Ludwig observed. In fact, it seemed like all the soldiers had collectively developed a higher pain tolerance a few months into battle. Either that, or they had learned to stop complaining of the lack of anaesthetic, which was always in short supply. And the more ruthless and hardened Ludwig felt, the more his patients ironically hailed him as some sort of angel there to save him.

Ludwig thought of the first man he ever treated while mindlessly washing his hands in the drying soap until his knuckles were raw, dry, and cracked. For a week after, he had been unable to sleep properly, seeing the man’s face in the dark. He had given that man what might've been an overdose of morphine. _If that man appeared before me today_, Ludwig thought, _I would leave him to die, without any painkillers._ How the Ludwig from that time would be upset and disgusted at him! And how the current Ludwig laughed at how naïve he had been! But it was true. Anaesthetic was in short supply. Actually, everything was in short supply. And the fact of the matter is, it was better to relocate those resources towards those with the best chance of survival.

Ludwig gulped. He could not forget that all lives were equal and life itself was valuable. That had been hammered into him by his father, even as Ludwig watched him butcher other human beings (sometimes with his assistance), and it was something he had swallowed deeper and deeper through every vapid university lecture he sat through on the superiority of certain men over others. Yes, his father was a hypocrite, and so was he for admiring him. But at least they admitted that they were mad scientists and what they were doing was wrong.

When he did administer anaesthetic, it was always the minimal dose he thought he could get away with. Often the adrenaline of his patients, whether they appeared calm or arrived in an undignified fit of shrieking, made up for the deficit. He threw away what he learned in medical school. It was no longer applicable here.

As he dried his hands, a sudden bitterness overtook Ludwig. He turned around and walked back into the hallways of the field hospital. The rotten stench of decaying flesh, corpses that have yet to be moved out and would surely attract maggots and rats, and of disinfectant failing to mask the scent filled his nostrils, the same way it had the first time he got here.

It was all unjust. So very, very unjust.

He shouldn't have to be working with these conditions. He shouldn't have to be deciding which of these young, healthy, robust individuals to save and which to let time take. He shouldn't have to be rationing anaesthetic, leaving some of his patients to cry in pain at night for their mothers, and others in a state of half satisfied dullness. He shouldn't have to be constantly smelling the filthy air of death and it's companions. He had been trained to work in a sterile, clean environment, which could be plenty chaotic itself, but by heavens, at least it wasn't this. What use was those years of medical school, of sleepless nights and days spent crying over revision? What use was knowing exactly what to do and how a life could be saved if he didn't have the resources to enact it? He was tiny, powerless, and impotent as a child with his scalpels.

Being nature? Conquering nature? The beast had conquered him! What folly and delusion; when he recalled the disfigured face of his first patient, he found himself within it.

"Sanitäter? Medic!" the infantryman called.

Ludwig wiped the corners of his eyes and smiled weakly. "Yes? Is there anything else you need?"

The infantryman's concern faded from his face. "I just wanted to see you smile. I hope to see you again!"

The man waved and Ludwig returned the gesture, and he joked, "I hope not!"

The infantryman was among the soldiers pronounced dead on arrival the very next week. He came in upon the stretcher, the nurses saw he was no longer breathing, and without bothering to resuscitate him, had him moved to the morgue. Ludwig could recognise him despite only seeing a glimpse of the corpse's face. It didn't shock him. He was used to seeing dead people now. But it was remarkable how different a human looked when living and when dead. That was the first person he'd seen in both states.

The older medic that Ludwig had met on his first day was the second. The fellow had drank himself stupid one night and then shot himself. Ludwig saw his body on the ground (for they didn't have enough beds that day) with the blood leaking out of his ear. A handful of medics had also committed suicide. But for Ludwig, the thought had never crossed his mind. He had to work. That was all he could think about.

The infantryman had been so happy the last week because it had been a good day. Minimal losses, some advances, maybe a victory. But though Ludwig had not formally been keeping count, he felt the bad days outnumbered the good days. The morgue was full, the hospital was always at capacity, and sometimes soldiers needed to sleep on the floor. Always the shortages, always the misery, always the signature stench of the rooms.

He was sick of the propaganda they played on the radio when he retired to his room at night, that was always going on about the Wehrmacht striking some new blow against the Red Army, when anyone with a map could see they were being pushed back. The war had stagnated and their side was in the early stages of retreat. And to hell with the radio shows depicting anyone out here as happy and full of vitality! Ludwig had seen even the most fanatical patriot get the soul extruded from them like a pill through a grinder. He wanted to take all those posters he had saw of nurses being cute, sweet, beautiful little things and throw them into a river.

* * *

Darting between the bullets, Ludwig ran into the battlefield. A shell exploded behind him. He did not look. A tank to one side, a machine gun there, it was second nature now to know where to run. The first time he came here, as it was in the field hospital, he could not discern anything in the cacophony. Now it was all he heard in his dreams. He clutched his leather satchel. It was heavy and weighed him down in his first few weeks, but as the months went on, the supplies emptied and could not be refilled.

His eyes came upon a man groaning in pain, slumped against a wall. He was clutching his arm. Ludwig kneeled beside him and removed his hand, seeing a bullet lodged deep inside the man's arm. He knew at once what to do. First, he tore the fabric of the man's shirt - these new uniforms were flimsy, and despite the grim weather, the people in charge only seemed to only make them thinner - and tied a tight knot above the wound. That should minimise bleeding. Taking a pocketknife out of his bag - the proper tools had been lost or given to some other medic a long time ago - he plunged it deep into the wound.

The man screamed, and tried to strike Ludwig, but he dodged. He was used to this sort of treatment. He could try to talk to the man but the latter was barely coherent, and Ludwig thought it wouldn't matter. Instead, he focused on carving deep through his muscle, digging the bullet out.

He could hear his blade scraping against the man’s bone. Like nails on a chalkboard, Ludwig cringed. Perhaps this bullet was too deep, but if left inside, the man would succumb to lead poisoning.

At first, he tried not to let it happen. But then, he decided since the thoughts weren't too passionate, he could afford to reminisce. The mental images of his father came flowing in. Suddenly he realised where his dad had learned both his signature crude brutality alongside the delicacy they had taught all fine doctors in medical school. War. It's always war. And just as his dad had told him, he had not died on the front lines, and Ludwig was fairly confident he would not in the future. Whatever Humboldt men were made of, it seemed to act as a natural psychological analgesic for these sorts of situations. He did not even register the man's ear splitting cries of pain as finally, with a flick of the knife, the bullet came out.

And with barely a drop of blood wasted! Ludwig was proud of himself. He would definitely write to father about that.

A bullet hardly cleared his head as Ludwig stood up and dashed. But just a few metres in front of him, a soldier appeared, clothed in the Red Army's signature overcoat. The soldier shouted in a smattering of Russian curses, as he dropped to his knee and grasped the bullet wound in his shin. Looking behind him, Ludwig saw the man he had just treated fired the shot. And then another. The Russian soldier was struck in the chest, as Ludwig’s patient fell unconscious.

The air was silent. He could only smell the iron and smoke of gunfire. Ludwig looked over his shoulder. There was nobody coming around this corner.

He approached the Soviet soldier, who was lying on his side, but still breathing, and positioned him to sit upright. Upon doing so, the man coughed a large amount of blood, running down his lips and chin. He looked up at Ludwig with desperate, confused eyes, as if to say, "What are you going to do?" and "Why are you doing this?"

Eyeing the gun the man still had in his hands, Ludwig moved slowly, feeling across his uniform for the wound. The soldier rebuffed him, putting a hand between them. His breathing was laboured, airways audibly filling up with blood.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Ludwig said in broken Russian.

The man laughed a little, then a lot, trying to contain himself before he choked on his own blood. He glanced at Ludwig. "Your Russian is horrible."

"I know."

The man sniffled as Ludwig continued prying for his wound, the blood and life dripping out of him by the second.

"Why are you helping an enemy?" the man asked.

"You are not my enemy. A life is a life."

"Hmm. You think differently to the other Germans then," said the Russian, thinking for a while. "You a Nazi, then?"

Glancing over his shoulder before answering, Ludwig whispered, "No."

The man laughed quietly. "You do not have to worry about me telling. How can I? When I am like- Like this-"

He coughed and another deluge of blood spilled down his chin. Ludwig did not tell him to stop talking or save his breath. When the man stabilised himself, he spoke again.

"What is that thing in your pocket?" he asked, raising his arm weakly to point at Ludwig's breast. Ludwig unbuttoned the pocket to take out his notebook, holding it up to his face.

"It is just a notebook."

"What do you write in it?"

The man was surprisingly curious. Medic cleared his throat, before answering, "Song lyrics, chords to play them on the guitar, what I remember from my Russian textbook-"

"Clearly not much," the Russian teased, as the men both chuckled.

"-And what reminds me of my family. Letters."

"That is a childish attachment," the man said.

"We are all children in war," replied Ludwig. "The number one thing most men cry out for when I come to them is their mothers."

"It is the same on our side too."

"You know," Ludwig began. "My mother used to read to lull me to sleep."

"Could you read me what you have in your notebook?" asked the Soviet soldier.

"I doubt you understand German.”

"I don't. Read to me anyway. Read to me in German so I do not have to understand."

And so Ludwig read to him in German, until the man's eyes glazed over, and his chest heaved no more, and the life finally slipped away from him.

* * *

It was the end of his term of service. Ludwig had hardly written to his parents, and whenever he did, he always received an angry reply from his mother, worried sick he'd been killed or captured or gone missing (forgetting that if that were the case, she'd have gotten a letter from the army saying so.) But after the incident with the Russian soldier, he felt compelled to write, not to simply recount things, but spill his heart in ways he rarely did. He told his parents everything, from his first patient, to his latest, how he had grown. How he had become colder, more callous, more evil, how vicious this place was, how indignant he felt.

And with that letter, he never got a reply.

He got a phone call instead.

When the commander told him there was a caller wanting to speak to him, Ludwig immediately feared the worst, that his parents had been struck and killed in a bombing. But on the other side of the line was his parents themselves.

His mother asked him how he'd slept, how he'd ate, and the mandatory reminders to look after himself, but it was with his father, that was who he was really looking forward to talking to. On the other end, Mr. Humboldt asked Mrs. Humboldt to leave the room before speaking to him.

In that moment, Ludwig's chest suddenly unwound, as tears urgently flooded his eyes. He tried to silence himself, but his gasps were surely audible over the phone. His father merely waited for him to stop crying. He could almost feel his gentle reassuring presence through the phone line.

"I have seen so many things that I don't understand, and yet I can't forget," said Ludwig.

"Good. Your memory will serve you well, more than it will on any exam," replied Mr. Humboldt.

"Father, I don't understand what I am feeling. The Russian I wrote to you about- He was just one man out of many who died like a flower before it blooms. I didn't even know his name. So many men have been sent here to their deaths, I know that, and yet-"

"And yet, people matter terribly, even if they are fleeting."

Another period of silence passed between them, as Ludwig gathered himself.

"Listen, we don't have much time left with this phone call, but do make it back home safely. Your mother and I will be waiting for you."

As Ludwig hung up, he crumpled to the floor of the phone booth, unable to stop his tears from falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title came from Rilke's poem "Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower", translated by Joanna Macy. The title translates to "And when the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth." Fitting, eh?
> 
> The songs the men were singing on the train were Erika and Lili Marleen.
> 
> I finished this chapter in a rush so I can a) give it to my friend as a belated Christmas gift b) leave 2020's stuff in 2020. I know updating a fic three times a year seems pathetic, but the things I have to research for this are emotionally difficult, and we all know how much this year sucked. At least we've finally reached the halfway point! See you next year!


	4. Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle, laß dich läuten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features descriptions of major character death, murder, injury, and mourning. It also implies child soldiers, war crimes, and trauma. I do not condone anything depicted.
> 
> This chapter is perhaps the saddest one so far. I expect it to be most upsetting. Please take caution.

_Berlin, 1945_

It was the early days after the end of the war. Ludwig caught his reflection in the window of a house where the door had been torn off. The glass itself was cracked. His glasses, miraculously, were not. In the reflection, his eyes were dull and undercut with dark circles. His face was pale, bonier, and bore a disinterested expression. Shrugging, he continued to walk down the street.

The streets were almost empty. Some children walked by in Wehrmacht uniforms far too big for them. Some of them were hurt. Ludwig looked away and wondered if some of them were the children he had once seen walking to school, all those years ago, when he attended the medical university by this path. Old men and women limped by the curb and begged for change that no one could afford to spare. In the background was the murmur of soldiers marching and tanks.

He came to the grocery store. The old fashioned sign still hung in place. He pushed the door open.

Inside was Gertrude, seated at the counter with her head in her arms, slumped over the desk. The curls of her blonde hair had been undone, leading it to bob awkwardly around her shoulders. She looked up as he approached, her cheeks and lips flushed a light plum from crying, her eyes still slightly wet.

“Ludwig, you’re back,” she said, attempting to smile.

“I am. Where is Herr Steiner?” he asked.

“He is resting.”

“Oh,” Ludwig began. “Well, when he wakes up, tell him that I-”

“He is dead.”

Ludwig pursed his lips. He looked around the store, which had been miraculously untouched by the bombings and the invasion, but obviously beaten up and left in neglect. It smelled or dust and mildew and there were cobwebs in the corner. Eyeing a spider crawling under the shelves, he asked, “Where is Elisa? She should be old enough to be in middle school now.”

“Elisa is dead,” Gertrude answered without a waver.

He was forced to close his mouth again, wondering how she died. Was it from the bombings? Was she made to serve as support to the child soldiers? Or was she the victim of a Soviet soldier, as the stories went they were oft to commit crimes against women and children?

As if reading his mind, Gertrude clarified, “She died with Opa in a bombing.”

The air was heavy. Ludwig was not interested in comforting a crying woman, or any person at all.

“I will be going home then,” he said, turning to leave. “Goodbye, Gertrude.”

“Wait!” she yelled, running up to grab his arm. “Don’t leave! I can’t go on by myself!”

“You can and you must, Gertrude, we all have to.”

“Marry me!”

Ludwig stepped back in shock as tears spilled from her eyes.

“What?”

“Marry me, Ludwig!”

“Gertrude,” he began gently. “I know you have been attracted to me since we first met. However, I do not reciprocate. I’m sorry.”

She still clung to him as he left the store, only slowly sliding off his arm as he walked down the street. Ludwig looked back to see her crumpled on the ground, sobbing into her hands. He gulped and looked forward, continuing on.

* * *

He saw the countryside on the train ride home. The green fields, wet from rain and glimmering in the dawn, smelled of heavy moss, fresh grass, and petrichor through his train window. Ludwig blinked as he awoke, cocking his neck this way and that to unwind the knots. There was still plenty of time left before he reached Stuttgart. He could sleep some more, or choose to stay awake to absorb the gentle morning sun. But he’d had enough of mornings. Closing himself off to the light, he chose the former.

When he got off the train, he rubbed his eyes as he blearily walked from the station to where he needed to be. Standing in front of his childhood home, he knocked the door.

Mrs. Humboldt answered. Seeing her face and figure again made Ludwig breathe a sigh of relief. _If she was okay, then father would be too._

“Lutz, welcome back,” she said with a mournful look in her eye.

He nodded wordlessly and walked inside.

“Take a seat, darling. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No, Mutter.”

“Okay. I’ll make us something to eat.”

“Thank you, but,” he said, turning to look at her desperately. “How have you been?"

"I have been managing. I've been running the pharmacy by myself for a while."

Ludwig looked up curiously. "Where is Vater?”

She blinked a few times, trying to contain her tears, as she spoke, “He is dead.”

Ludwig froze in place. He felt that he’d been turned to glass, and that if he’d moved, he would shatter into a million pieces on the ground.

“How?” he asked.

“It is my fault,” Mrs. Humboldt replied, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. She was still wearing her wedding ring. “We killed the SS officers in this neighbourhood together, when we heard-” She gasped. “-Of the terrible things they were doing to innocents. We got riskier and riskier with how big our targets were, and your father was caught instead of me."

_So Father was calling me and telling me that he loved me and to come back home with the authorities knocking at his door,_ Ludwig realised.

"I did not stop him," Mrs. Humboldt continued. "And then he told me not to come for him, and I listened, when I-”

“You did nothing wrong, Mutter,” Ludwig said, leaning in to embrace her. “You are not to blame. Vater would not be angry with you.”

Mrs. Humboldt cried, before pushing Ludwig away. “My god, boy, you need a bath.”

He chuckled, “I’m sorry.”

She straightened her face, and announced, “But Lutz, there is one person I have yet to clean up. Perhaps you could do so for me?”

“Oh, yes, alright,” he nodded, taking a key from Mrs. Humboldt.

“The basement,” she said, gesturing down.

Ludwig went to the cabinet by the staircase, opening it, and crawled inside. Slipping the key into a slot on the ground, he opened the door to the basement. Descending on the creaking staircase into the room filled with dust and smoke, he found himself confronting the face of Lieutenant Becker.

His eyes were both bruised and bleeding. Blood also dripped from his nose. His hair was slick with grease and sweat. But he was breathing, albeit in a laboured way. He was not dead, as Mrs. Humboldt had implied. _If that is a dead man, then I am one too,_ Ludwig thought, as his gaze turned to a trolley of rusted surgical tools, bloodied hammers, knives, and axes. Taking the hammer, he aimed the claw outward and raised it in the air, bringing it down upon the Lieutenant's head.

* * *

He ate only a little. He did not bathe. Ludwig ran from his mother’s house after gulping down a glass of water, yelling he’d be back in the night. He sprinted to the station and boarded a train. By midday, he got off, having reached his destination: Rottenburg.

He was thirsty now. The sun was high in the air and sweat was dripping from his forehead. Ludwig walked onward anyway.

Like the streets in Berlin and Stuttgart, they were mostly empty. There was a faint smell of ash as Ludwig’s footsteps kicked up the loose dirt from the ground. Some people stared at him oddly, wondering where he was going with such a determined stride. He reached a clearing in the town, where the houses and people stopped and where the trees were thick. Ducking his head underneath a branch, Ludwig gingerly stepped over the thorns and weeds on the forest ground. His boots, with their own out soles, were thin, and he would surely pierce himself if he weren’t careful.

Finally he reached it: two gravestone among gravestones. He knelt in front of it. The first gravestone read, _Katarina Humboldt __n__ée_ _von Rottenburg, __1851 to 1923._ The second, _Karl Humboldt, 1847 to 1923._

The gravestones had been darkened with time. Ludwig brushed a finger against them. No dust appeared on his fingertips. The once gleaming white stone had simply absorbed the aura of this forest and of the graveyard.

“I’m sorry,” he said to his grandparents. He closed his eyes and could not remember their face. He had been so young, only four or five when they passed. If he recalled correctly, they'd died when his grandfather attempted to use this machine he made that supercharged people's hearts to make them invincible on himself, but his heart exploded. Then the machine itself exploded, and a piece flew off and hit his grandmother on the head in just the right angle to kill her. But they had been good to him, he knew that.

Opening his eyes, he frantically shrugged off his Wehrmacht uniform jacket. “I’m sorry to come before you wearing- Wearing this,” he apologised again. He stayed at their grave for a few moments. When his knees began to ache, he stood up, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title translates to "Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell." It is from Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Joanna Macy.
> 
> I wasn't sure which irl Rottenburg the one in game is referring to, so I've left that up to your imagination.
> 
> Now that this story is over halfway through, I feel obligated to finish it.


End file.
